


Preface

by consultingidiot (seanceinthealps)



Series: Season Four [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drug Use, Episode: The Abominable Bride, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, F/M, Missing Scene, Mycroft Holmes IS the British Government, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Prologue, Sherlock (TV) Season/Series 03, Solitary Confinement, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 10,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21564952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seanceinthealps/pseuds/consultingidiot
Summary: This is the preface to my entire rewriting of season 4 of Sherlock. This fic (?) will most likely not be too exciting or have too much of a plot but I figured it was important to start at the middle of season 3. Yes, the plot is the same, but! the twist is you get other stuff bunched in between what you see on the screen. So like if that doesn't convince you, my dude...I hope y'all will join me on this project lol. It will have three seperate fics (representative of one episode) after this preface.xoxoyours, consultingidiot
Relationships: Greg Lestrade & John Watson, Mary Morstan/John Watson, Mrs. Hudson & John Watson, Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & Greg Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes & Mary Morstan, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes & Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Season Four [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655074
Comments: 33
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Mycroft is a nosy ass. I hope y'all enjoy my fic waah I'm fuckin nervous

John’s bedside table vibrated loudly and lit up with blue light. Illuminated now with a ghostly pallor, the room was almost hauntingly silent. Sleepily, he reached across to see who had messaged him. He always left his phone on, since Sherlock often enjoyed torturing John with constant text messages - and one day, John feared it may actually be important.

_Don’t marry her, John._

Unknown sender. John’s heart thudded in his chest. Of course they were talking about Mary - his fiancée, and wife by the time the week came to a close. Who could possibly not want him to marry her? As far as he was aware there wasn’t anyone who had it out for him - or Mary for that matter; he had no enemies… unless? No, it was impossible, Moriarty was dead. He had blown his brains out on the rooftop. 

Teeth gritted, John tapped out a small response.

_Who are you?_

Air caught in his throat, and he waited in the dark - the clock ticking menacingly from his wall. 

_Mycroft._

John exhaled. Mycroft may be a pain in his arse, but at least he had no bad intentions. He was safe. 

John supposed it was unusual to automatically jump to the conclusion that a text from an unknown sender meant someone intended him harm - but then again that was the life of an ex-army doctor who now lived with a consulting detective with a possibly abnormal love of crime. And, to be perfectly honest, he loved it.

_Why shouldn’t I marry the woman I love, Mycroft?_

What could Mycroft Holmes possibly have against his and Mary’s union? It wouldn’t even affect him in the slightest. 

_Please._

That was something John would have ever possibly imagine Mycroft would say - especially to him. ‘Please’. This was clearly important to him, but John couldn’t possibly think of why.

_That’s not a response, Mycroft._

_I shouldn’t have to explain._

Frustrated and perplexed, John contemplated even responding at all. Yet, curiosity got the better of him - it usually did - and the cat wasn’t dead yet, so what was the harm?

_Mycroft. Quite frankly this doesn’t affect you, and neither does it involve you. Good night._

John, for the first time since he’d met Sherlock, turned his phone to silent and left it on his bedside table, before covering himself in blankets and closing his eyes. He was already asleep when the phone screen lit up the darkness once more. He never ended up opening the message that plastered itself across the phone.

_It may not affect me but think how it will affect others._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they make my heart go hhhhhh

Groggily, John slipped out of bed, and padded softly into the front room. He had spent the night at Baker Street. One last time. Sherlock was already lying across the sofa, fingers steepled, in a way John had seen him do so many times in the past. 

“Morning. Tea?”

Unsurprisingly, Sherlock didn’t respond. John often questioned whether his friend really was deep in thought, or if he just couldn’t be bothered to even attempt a response.

“Got a case, then?”

Sherlock lowered his fingers. A silence flooded over the room, in a strange amalgamation of familiar comfort and expectancy. 

“You’re getting married today.”

“Wha- Yes. I am. You know that.”

“You’ve packed already. Leaving so soon?”

“Well- yes. Yes I am leaving in about half an hour. Set up the wedding or something, I don’t know. Not even going to ask how you knew that - my trousers creased or something?”

Sherlock sat up quickly on the sofa, and ran his fingers quickly and messily through the dark curls of his hair. He blinked at John. Once, twice.

“Well, yes…”, Sherlock said slowly, “They’re creased, but that’s hardly new for you - wouldn’t be much of a deduction if it was the norm. No, I heard you, John, last night. You really ought to work on rummaging more quietly.”

“Oh.” John felt his ears warming. He had clearly kept the detective awake attempting to fold his suit; how was he to know it would be so damn hard to get right? So late at night too. Sherlock watched him reflectively, the same way he watched someone in order to deduce them, but this time it was gentler. Watching, not for fun or a case, but rather in a hushed way of showing he was listening. 

Awkwardly, in the centre of the room with Sherlock’s watchful gaze upon him, John flexed his hand and cleared his throat, before turning into the neighbouring kitchen and busying himself with the business of making tea. Sherlock had returned to staring contemplatively, on his back, at the ceiling. His brooding silence allowed John to be alone in his mind. The monotonous familiarity of making tea - a procedure he had grown so used to performing over these last 4 years - seemed somehow sad. John wasn’t too much of the sentimental type, but this was the apartment in which he had had his best years. That was something he doubted he could let go of that easily.

John stirred sugar into the tea, absentmindedly watching it dissolve, aware now that this may be the final time he would ever do so in this kitchen - the kitchen he had felt most at home in, in all his life. 

Despite the occasional severed limb or the unidentifiable chemicals he often found - in places that anyone with a shred of common sense would know they really shouldn’t be - John had never felt more at home than he did at 221b Baker Street. He could only hope his new home was just as good - with the added perk of no constant health and safety violations.

* * *

“Any plans for today then, Sherlock? Before the wedding, I mean.”

They sat opposite each other, the way they had always done, holding steaming cups of tea by handle. Sherlock didn’t respond. He seemed entirely fixated on the contents of his cup, as if the brown liquid held more secrets than any case had ever revealed to him. John glanced at his watch - it had already been twenty five minutes. He had to go. 

It was happening so quickly. So abruptly was his life in Baker Street ending; the chapter irreversibly closing before he had even realised it happened. He would trade his best friend for a wife and domestic bliss. Finally, he supposed, he could have some peace.

Sherlock had often told John he was ‘the soldier that hadn’t returned from the war’, the he was drawn to dangerous situations, yet John found himself craving normality. He could finally have the life of which every person dreams. Well, other than people like Sherlock. He didn’t think in that way. Not Sherlock.

  
Would John really be trading Sherlock for Mary, a voice in the back of his nagged. He shook it aside. Of course not - Sherlock would remain his best friend. Nothing could change that. He had become so accustomed to the detective’s intelligent - yet often infuriating presence - and doubted he could let that go so easily.

  
“I’d better go take a quick shower and change,” John said, swallowing the last dregs of his tea, and standing, “Wedding stuff, you know?”

Sherlock said nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the fact people have kudos'd and bookmarked this already makes me so happy you dont even know hhh

John came out of the shower and changed into the clothes he had laid out the night before, nothing special. It was just jeans and a purple button up shirt he had once borrowed from Sherlock and had forgotten to return. He ensured his tuxedo was neatly packed and folded into his case, as well as the other small selection of items he would need for the day itself. He didn’t bring much to Baker Street - all of his personal belongings were still at home with Mary.

When John arrived back in the front room, Sherlock’s chair was empty; a full cup of tea sat cold on the side-table, but Sherlock was nowhere in sight. John inhaled deeply. He wasn’t unfamiliar with Sherlock’s seemingly random comings and goings, he supposed he had just wished he’d have cared enough to see him before the wedding. He was probably off in London, or at Scotland Yard looking for a case. That, or he’d be in one of his bolt holes - Parliament Hill or that blind greenhouse in Kew gardens… 

Grumbling and wishing his best friend wasn’t such an insufferable bastard, John took himself and his bag out of the flat and into a cab.

* * *

“Greg, Mrs Hudson, hey, can I talk to you for a second?”

It was 10 minutes since Sherlock was supposed to have arrived. John was pacing anxiously, with an unsettled feeling lurching in his gut. The idea was Sherlock was to arrive at the wedding earlier, but instead some random aunt John had almost forgotten he had invited had arrived much too early, and Sherlock was nowhere in sight.  
Mary had only laughed at him when he’d ranted to her about his friend’s carelessness only fifteen minutes ago, “He’ll make it,” she promised, her voice light and her eyes ablaze. 

“John! Hey, big day, eh?”, Lestrade smiled kindly, breaking conversation with Mrs Hudson who went to get a drink from the table. John had always liked Lestrade, even from the very first case, he had seemed amiable and caring - and it was evident he cared a lot, even for someone like Sherlock. It seemed impossible to John at first, to care for a person who never really seemed to show too much regard for others. Then again, John himself was living proof that it wasn’t impossible to like that kind of a person; hell, Sherlock was the best man at John’s wedding.

“You wouldn’t happen to have seen Sherlock, would you?” John said, skimming over Lestrade’s comment entirely.

“I can’t say I have - he’s not here yet? Bastard.”

John grimaced slightly. Only an hour before the regular guests would be arriving.

“You didn’t even see him earlier today? He left again without warning, God knows where he could have possibly gone.” For a half a second, Lestrade’s face became stricken, before he quickly regained the same smile he had worn just seconds beforehand.

“I haven’t even seen him all week if I’m honest,” Lestrade said slowly, as if handcrafting every word carefully and meticulously. He looked at John for a moment, and John sensed something that he could have sworn to be deceit in his warm, brown eyes. “Well, I’m sure he’ll be here in a minute. He always has something going on, that man.”

“Hm?” Mrs Hudson, who had just arrived alongside Greg once again, “Looking for Sherlock? Oh I wouldn’t worry, dear. I saw him earlier. He sent me away to get biscuits, can you believe it?” 

“He was at Baker Street, again? That’s- well that’s a relief, thank you Mrs Hudson.”

* * *

As it turned out, John Watson did, in fact, have nothing to worry about. Sherlock walked in fully and appropriately clothed only fourteen minutes later. John, despite Sherlock’s actions having left him seething slightly, he decided it was best to let it go - just this once. Sherlock’s complete inconsideration of John’s stresses and the fact the man hadn’t even been bothered to call - or text as was the detective’s preferred form of communication - was something John could easily bring up later, as ammunition for any future disagreements they could potentially have.

But something still unsettled John, something which he couldn’t explain or even find a rational argument for. Lestrade had told him he hadn’t seen Sherlock all week - that wasn’t abnormal in itself, Sherlock rarely went to Scotland Yard to dig up cases, he much preferred the case to come to him. The unsettling part was, that John had explicitly texted Sherlock twice in the last week, hoping to catch up in someway only for Sherlock to tell him that he was heading towards the station ‘for a new case’ or ‘the prospect of a case’.

John stomach churned. It had been an excuse, he knew, but why would Sherlock lie?


	4. Chapter 4

Mary lay next to John sleeping quietly and soundly. John instead was still awake, staring at the ceiling. The wedding had not gone the idyllic way John had hoped or planned for. Yet, an attempted murder at his own wedding was just his luck - typical that the man who tries to begin a normal and peaceful life begins it with crime. Murder! It was ridiculous.  
Sherlock had solved it of course, Sholto was alive, and would remain that way thanks to his talk to him through the door. It was possibly the most human John had ever seen his friend - he almost seemed emotional, which was quite frankly almost jarringly out of character.

It was true that Sherlock had really surprised him tonight, in more ways than one. His speech had rendered the guests to tears, even he himself didn’t know quite how to comprehend the weight of what Sherlock had said. He had asked John if he had made a mistake, if his audience was responding negatively to his words. 

Recently Sherlock had seemed to be breaking away from this inhuman, ‘sociopathic’ guise he had constructed for himself over the years, and was becoming as human as John had ever known him to be. John had always known his detective companion wasn’t actually a sociopath - he just found it difficult to connect to others the way many people quickly and instinctively learn. That didn’t make him a sociopath. Not even a ‘high-functioning’ one. John had never been quite sure if Sherlock himself believed he was a sociopath, if it was not just a lie and mask to everyone around him, but also a lie to himself. A protection? A man rationalising his struggles with the comfort of an exciting sounding word? John would probably never truly find out. That was okay, though, he knew the truth - especially after tonight. Sherlock was as perfectly and wonderfully human as the rest of them.

Sherlock had said something else tonight, though. Something Sherlock had said away from everyone else. He had been talking to Sholto through the barred door, and John shuddered at the memory of Sherlock’s words that left his heart beating faster than it probably should have been beating, even with the dire situation of the man behind the door. Something had changed about his friend, a sudden trance of melancholia washed over him and suddenly John had been swimming in it too. 

_We wouldn’t do that, would we - you and me? We would never do that to John Watson._

Sholto had somehow insinuated that he and Sherlock were alike in some way. God only knew what he meant by that. And Sherlock.

It seemed Sherlock understood the meaning behind his words and had managed to respond in a way which convinced Sholto to open the damn door. Although he didn’t understand the meaning behind the words they exchange, he could feel it. Something vehement about it, a shared connection, and there was such a sadness to it that John couldn’t describe. He could only wonder about the silent words exchanged between the two men who had both impacted his life in such significant ways.

* * *

And then Sherlock had left early. Clearly he could do _that_ to John Watson; clearly - in his completely illogical mind - abandoning John at his wedding was within the realms of what was acceptable for him. One second he was stringing the air with the melody for John’s dance - the dance Sherlock himself had taught him - and the next he was simply gone.

John had moved on into domestic bliss, with the previous chapter having been left incomplete and, in truth, unsatisfied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter makes me sad :( but im just out here vibing


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sherlock POV time baby!! yo he's my soft toddler, protect him please :( also sorry it's kinda short lol

Sherlock had gone home early, he assumed John would have understood. There was really no use in his presence anymore. He had fulfilled his duty; he had been the best man, played the violin, solved a surprise crime and then he had left.

Sherlock hadn’t returned to Baker Street. Why should he? The flat felt much too empty, and he always preferred to think in the company of others. That was the funny thing about his genius - it was usually prompted by the ignorance or stupidity of others around him. He had the cab driver drop him off in front of the flat - in case anyone asked where he had gone. There was no way of tracking him. He couldn’t be bothered with meaningless babble: _where did you go, Sherlock?_

And so, the detective set off on foot, in the crisp dark night of London. Lamplights illuminated his dark figure sweeping through the streets, his coat trailing behind him - another shadow in the streetlights. He didn’t have any idea where he could possibly be headed. Autopilot seemed to be the only thing leading him through the streets and, unusually, he didn’t even care. No one was waiting for him at Baker Street so if he happened to walk too far, he could easily not even return to the flat until the morning. There would be no aggravated texts from John, demanding his exact whereabouts.  
John really could be so controlling sometimes, why should he even care where Sherlock went and what Sherlock did.  
  
It’s not like John cared too much about the detective, he simply enjoyed the danger Sherlock had provided him. For the short period they had known each other. If John cared, he wouldn’t have traded it all for a perfect, quaint little life of tranquil and domestic bliss. Again, he had fulfilled his purpose as John’s friend. He was alone again; besides he was quite happy to be alone. It suited him.

Sherlock scoffed. Domestic bliss sounded perfectly abhorrent to him and was beneath him in every possible way. What was so appealing to John, he couldn’t possibly guess.

A cacophony of car horns suddenly erupted into the detective’s eardrums, shaking him from thought and forcing him to remove his eyes from the ground. He had walked into traffic.   
“Oi, psycho? Look where you’re going, why don’t you?” said a man angrily from his car window. The man was red-faced and shaking his fist, and Sherlock did his best to control himself. _Don’t react, Sherlock, it’s not helpful,_ John’s voice echoed through his mind. 

Like he could talk, John was prone to following the exact opposite of that advice - inclined to violent or angry outbursts at any given moment. Besides, John wasn’t even here anymore, he couldn’t be restricted. 

Calmly, Sherlock stepped up onto the rosy faced man’s car bonnet, and walked across it to the other side of the road, before springing from the car, coat billowing after him. He made sure to turn and grin at the man before he turned on his heel and waved at him as he walked back down the street, a tumult of cursing following behind him. 

It was unlike anything Sherlock had ever done before. He had often been told he was rude, arrogant, detestable, but never had he been quite so _bold_. Just for tonight though, somehow the misery of that man lifted Sherlock’s mood. He wanted to inflict hurt. Inflict hurt in the same way Sherlock felt now - although any feeling was stifled and buried beneath mounds upon mounds of arrogance he held as his exterior.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have rewritten this chapter so many times and i still dont vibe with it but hhh oh well

In some strange way his subconscious had led him to the front doorstep of someone he had, until very recently, never communed with freely unless it was about a case, but had never thought of showing up at her home, completely uninvited. 

Molly Hooper. 

He only spoke to her about cases and work or research, or to invite her to become a confidante in his own faked suicide. Never would he have expected to arrive at her doorstep at half past eleven on a Saturday night.

He stared at her door, newly painted green, before rapping at it with three, steady knocks. A bleary eyed Molly opened the door wearily, as if already preparing whatever she would say to make whoever was knocking on her door this late at night leave her alone. Instead of speaking, however, her mouth instead fell into a small, stunned circle the moment her eyes landed upon the man on her doorstep. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, as if she believed herself to have gone entirely insane. Her hand pulled the fabric of her robe together, abashedly. 

Once confirming the existence of the detective, who had matched her silence with his own, she invited him inside and shakily closed the door behind them.  
  
Preoccupied with her hair, Molly watched the man who had been the reason for her suffering for far too long. The man who had never really paid her too much heed, never had really noticed plain Molly from the morgue; the man at her doorstep was a man she had finally decided to leave behind. Allowed him to become history, but now here he was. She had Tom now. Did he not even care what he was doing to her?

“Sherlock, what are you-”

“Can I sleep here tonight?”, Sherlock said quickly, cutting off Molly’s question. 

“Yes. Of course,” Molly answered, entirely instinctively, her overwhelming desire to help blocking rational thought. Blocking the knowledge that this would hurt her more than he would ever know. She knew she should hate him, he was thoughtless and careless, but she didn’t - she never could. Not Sherlock. 

Still she was worried for him, it was still John’s wedding day, and Sherlock was here instead of Baker Street. Molly may not have Sherlock’s deductive prowess, but she knew that meant something. During the wedding and John and Mary’s dance, her eyes were not on them, but on Sherlock. She watched him drawing out each note with more and more effort with each pull of the bow across the strings.   
He had appeared, to Molly, desperately lonely - shipwrecked on a small stage, while everyone else enjoyed themselves around him. She couldn’t imagine it was too different to the reality of his life. She wanted to help him. 

“Sherlock? Are you okay? You know you can always talk to me?”

 _You look sad. When you think he can’t see you._  
  
Molly still remembered her words from two years ago. She knew what that meant, and she knew how lonely the detective was behind the ‘sociopathic’ facade. It was such a shame that John would never see that side of Sherlock - Sherlock wouldn’t allow it. John would never be able to help, but Molly… Molly could help.

“Yes of course I’m okay.”

“You can have my bed,” Molly said, accommodatingly, “I’ll sleep down here.” 

Sherlock skipped pleasantries, skipped what most other people would have considered an acceptable and polite response to the offer. There was no ‘Oh, I couldn’t’, or even an ‘Are you sure?’. Instead, he simply nodded and headed straight for her room and Molly didn’t even question how he knew the way. Instead she smiled through a sigh, and made her sofa into a makeshift bed.

Molly knew Sherlock would have disappeared by the morning, so she made sure to leave him a note in his coat pocket which he had hung in her hallway: 

_Sherlock,_   
_Don’t ever feel like you have no-one to talk to. I meant what I said, I will always listen to you._   
_And, if you ever need a place to stay again, I will always welcome you here._

_\- Molly x_

The original had implied Sherlock was always welcome in her bedroom - but she wasn’t too sure of the message that delivered.

***

Sherlock didn’t visit again. Molly hardly expected him to, yet she did wonder whether he had even gotten her note. It was the Wednesday morning when she decided to text him. Short and sweet: _Hey, Sherlock. I don’t know if you saw but I left you a note - in your coat. It doesn’t really matter, but I thought I should let you know in case you just didn’t even see it. Love Molly._

She hovered over the send button, wondering whether to send it how it was, or to erase the ‘love’ - would that send the wrong message?   
Biting her lower lip, Molly hit send, leaving the message as was. What was really the worst that could happen, she decided; people used that words for friends and family too. It wasn’t that unusual.

She didn’t receive a response until late that evening. She had just returned home from an extensive shift, and was sleepily scrolling through her twitter timeline, huddled in a blanket fortress. The text vibration startled her, and quickly jolted her sleepy eyes awake. 

_I’m fine. I appreciate the sentiment and I may consider it, but you really have nothing you should feel obliged to do for me. - SH_

Molly didn’t really expect anything else, but despite herself she found herself smiling. He had seen it, and she had done as much as she could.


	7. Chapter 7

No-one heard from Sherlock in the following weeks. His phone had seemed to have gone dead, and even Mrs Hudson seemed to only have seen him in the week succeeding the wedding and had not seen him since. Not even John had heard even the shadow of a whisper about the detective’s whereabouts.

John was enjoying life with Mary. The serenity of suburban life had given him a solid routine - which contrasted the insanity of the way his life had used to be with Sherlock. The way he had never known which nights he would be chasing a taxi down the streets of London or driving out to Devon in search of a gigantic hound. Now, John knew exactly what he was doing, even days in advance, and there was rarely any break in routine. 

Every morning, the 6 o’clock alarm would ring and John would cycle to the doctor’s surgery and return again at seven that evening. He liked the routine, but there was always a unquellable expectation that his day would somehow get turned on its head; that one of his patients would try to kill him or a body would be found under his desk. John knew it was stupid, but some part of him still expected something to disrupt his peace.   
Force of habit, he assumed, to always be on the lookout for danger.

Mary didn’t work at the moment. She had worked at the surgery previously, but now as Sherlock had kindly acted as a human pregnancy test at their wedding, the couple had figured it would be best for Mary to be jobless for the time being - besides John earned just about enough for the both of them.

John had never been good at smalltalk, and this neighbourhood was filled with families, new parents and other expecting couples. This meant there was always some parent at their door. Mary usually knew them already - he expected that life at home meant that she had a lot of free time to talk to them - and so John would usually stay out of the way when one came to the door, allowing Mary to deal with the gibbering conversation that would ensue.   
He would often play doting husband, making tea and offering the guest biscuits and sometimes he would even perch on an armchair making small and pointless comments, which he would likely forget within the next ten minutes. 

It was comfortable and he wanted to be liked, to get on with the neighbours. Yet he couldn’t help but find their conversations and their mindless chatter awfully dull and he often found himself re-imagining the situations if Sherlock had been there - often laughing to himself at the preposterous things Sherlock could deduce about each of his neighbours. 

The truth was, John missed Sherlock’s presence - as annoying and downright callous as he sometimes was. John wished more than anything he at least would bother to even send John one text, confirming that he even existed. At this point Sherlock could easily have just disappeared from the face of the planet. 

* * *

It was roughly a month since John had last seen Sherlock, and a Sunday. John was still in bed when he heard the knocking, having woken from another of his nightmarish war flashbacks. This time, though, Sherlock was there. Sherlock was there, at the time of their first meeting. The day that Sherlock had - correctly - deduced John enjoyed a dangerous lifestyle and was more than happy to follow him in his escapades of crime. 

_The game is on._

The knocking continued, and John teetered on the brink of the sleeping and waking world. He threw a robe over his clothes and looked at his wife who was still bundled under the covers. _You get it_ , her body language told him. Grumbling he cursed her for not being more awake - he really didn’t want to have to answer the door. But he did, to eradicate the knocking that was slowly drilling into his skull. Mary would be up in a minute, she could handle whoever it was. He just had to open the door.

“I know it’s early,” John suddenly was face to face with a woman - one of his neighbours, yet he couldn’t quite place her name. Tears reddened her eyes and, she was clutching a tissue hopelessly - as if it were the only thing grounding her. “Really, I’m sorry.” The tissue came to her nose, dabbing gently as if this would present her as composed and dignified. John stared blankly. How was he supposed to react, again?

“It that Kate?” 

Kate. He remembered her name as it was said. Mary’s voice behind him made him feel at ease, like the situation was finally under control and could be saved from John’s own bumbling attempt at neighbourliness. He confirmed the identity of the woman, to which Mary pointed out John hadn’t even invited her inside yet - that he was still gazing gormlessly at the poor woman. Idiot, he scolded himself.

“Sorry, yes. Do you want to come in Kate?” he fumbled over his words, but at least the sentiment was there and now she was in Mary’s territory - she was better at this, whatever this was.

John found himself going through the motions of playing good husband, whilst Mary was comforting their neighbour and friend. He listened attentively, and tried to show he understood. Unfortunately, it was painfully obvious that he, in fact, did not understand. John mistook Kate’s son for her husband, and then referred to him, as he so eloquently put it, as ‘the drugs one’. He couldn’t fathom, initially, why Kate had come to him and Mary - Sherlock handled the missing people, why didn’t she just ask for him? 

As it turned out, Kate seemed to know nothing of the detective - where had she been these past few years? Only two years ago, John couldn’t escape seeing his face on the cover of every newspaper, everywhere he looked he had seen the face of his disgraced friend, who John had believed he hadn’t done enough to protect. Utter prick, he thought, his mind attempting to be rid of the memories.

The fog lifted from John’s mind as Kate was explaining that her son and his friends had some kind of derelict building - some dump - they spent their time in. He could only imagine how disgusting that place would be. 

And, dangerous.

“Where is he?” John said, surprising even himself at his sudden input.

“It’s a house. It’s a dump, I mean. It’s practically falling down”.

John turned to face Kate. “No, the address. Where exactly”.

He spoke calmly but Mary’s eyes were following him, he could feel it. He knew she knew exactly what his motives we - he was transparent to her. Since the day they had met John knew everything that made John Watson was neatly and arranged on his surface - entirely accessible to Mary. 

John wanted to, needed to, do something different. Acknowledged that, even if it was the last time, he had to do this. Even if it was only bringing someone’s son home from a house of addicts.   
Everyday since the wedding, John had been repressing his urge for the thrill and adrenaline that came with danger. 

  
He was finally giving in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all already know what's going down


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my dumbass posted the same chapter twice!! genuinely feeling like a buffoon, but hey! hopefully this one is new. enjoy or something i guess

Mary questioned him - of course she did, even though she knew exactly what John was doing - he didn’t expect anything less of her, really.

“You can’t come, you’re pregnant.” 

John knew his wife well enough to know rationalising with her was entirely futile.

“You can’t _go_ , I’m pregnant.”

* * *

In the end, they both went, John had taken a tyre lever and marched purposefully up to the door of the rusted, half demolished building, having ordered Mary to stay behind. Safer that way.

The next moments were blurred with a haze of adrenaline, he hadn’t felt this alive since- Well, since he had been with Sherlock. The way the scruffy man had foolishly threatened him, and the way John had quite easily stopped him, leaving him sprawled against a wall, nursing a sprained arm. Some kind of morbid satisfaction came with that - Ella would have certainly raised an eyebrow.  
  
John had followed the man’s directions to where he would find Kate’s son - Isaac. Stairs creaked in inviting threat, as John had made his way up to the second floor, finding Isaac in an almost tragic slump against a wall; his eyes were glazed and senseless in a way that frighteningly contrasted his obvious youth. John had spoken with him, his voice gentle and calming - the same way he would have spoken with an injured patient back in Afghanistan.

He was sweet and polite and John’s heart ached for him - and his mother. John’s adrenaline subsided, tenderness seeping into his body. From that moment John swore that he would never allow his own child to ever feel so lost that they would end up in a place like this. They would be loved - so undeniably loved, that they would never question or doubt its integrity.   
John could only imagine the loneliness this behaviour - this _self-destruction_ \- stemmed from. The only person he’d ever known who had been through something similar, John would never know what had caused it. Had he been lonely? He’d never asked.

And that person had been-

“Ah, hello, John. Didn’t expect to see you here, did you come for me too?”

* * *

John had sent Isaac to go get in the car with Mary, which he did in a willing and eager stupor. He was still a kid, a kid who still took the word of adults as gospel. Mary welcomed him, quietly relieved - she had grown rather fond of her neighbours, especially Kate and Isaac. She expected John to be bringing up the rear but the dusty concrete was entirely deserted.

“Where’s John?”

“They’re having a fight.”

“Who is?”

Hardly a second later, as if on some comically tragic cue, the little blue door erupted clean off its hinges, Sherlock Holmes in its wake. Mary bit her lip. This would hurt John - personally wound him. She brought the car up to the men, and marshalled them inside; her practical brain had taken over and all she needed was to get the job done.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, this is a big timeskip. I had written out all the stuff from hlv, but honestly reading it back it's just bloody boring - we know what happens yall dont need to hear it from me.
> 
> +++ tiny 'gore' warning. there's nothing graphic, just be aware there is mention of blood.

The week without Sherlock went sluggishly, which was perhaps a mercy since John could hardly comprehend that in just a few short days he would see his friend again for the very last time. Mycroft refused to tell him where he was sending Sherlock. Despite John’s perpetual stream of messages to the elder Holmes, the only response he’d received was that he wouldn’t be seeing Sherlock again. Ever. It seemed practically unfathomable to him. There _was_ no life without Sherlock. He had learned that the hard way. 

Seemingly unphased, Mary hummed gently in the kitchen. The universe was doing its best to try and trick John into plummeting into the false belief that everything was normal - that it was all fine. John didn’t quite understand why Mary was so unaffected. It had seemed at first like she was simply trying to make John feel more comfortable in the transition, but now it seemed almost as if she didn’t care in the slightest.

John still held some resentment towards his wife; he couldn’t help it. Seeing her - _Mary Watson_ \- cutting carrots so deftly, only made him think of what else she could probably do with that knife - what she _had_ done. She seemed the tranquil epitome of domesticity, apron tied firmly around her swollen stomach, but John knew her past was such a terrifyingly stark contrast and he knew about none of it.   
He didn’t want to think about it, but sometimes it was unavoidable; the niggling knowledge you live with an ex-assassin was hardly something a person could lightly forget.

She had changed, though, Sherlock had practically confirmed it himself only a few weeks ago. Allegedly, Mary had not attempted to murder him but had rather saved his life; she had known he wouldn’t die from the bullet hole she had ripped through him. Hardly merciful, but somehow John believed it. Mary never did anything in half measures, and whilst he hadn’t yet finished seething that she had decided to take that risk - risk Sherlock’s _life_ \- he truly did believe she had never intended to be his killer.   
He trusted Mary wholly with that. She wouldn’t dream of killing Sherlock, or anyone for that matter. Her assassin days were now merely billowing clouds of ash and dust, dispersed in the winds of past.

* * *

John’s dreams were only of Sherlock during the week. The week John could only assume Sherlock was spending in some lonely, little prison. In his dreams Sherlock was bleeding out in an uncannily familiar situation - the same way John had found him in that damned office after Mary had shot him.   
Blood spilled and pooled and John was suspended, helpless, just watching. With each dream, the location changed but every time the result was the same. Oceans of blood rose higher and higher until it was in John’s eyes and mouth and he was coughing and spluttering scarlet. Acrid metallic blood on his tongue and drenching and seeping into his pores. And still he was suspended - unable to move any of his limbs. Entirely useless. 

Drenched in stiff sweat, John would wake every night to see Mary content and peaceful next to him on the pillow. One night, he could have sworn he saw her hands on the pillow soaked in crimson pigment, but then he blinked and it was gone.

The dreams made sleep close to impossible. He must have made gallons of tea in that week, simply for the sake of giving him something - anything - to do in the early hours of of the morning. They all went cold because sitting still was out of the question; he paced through the rooms of his house, the movement being the only thing keeping him from insanity. Work became more and more difficult as he would often would sit down and instantly fall asleep. 

Before Christmas there had been talk of moving John out of general practice to the hospital, moving on from just being a local GP. John realised that transfer would now be improbable; the amount of unprofessionalism he was displaying at work was astronomical: falling asleep and missing patients, arriving late in the mornings and having the nightmares at work whenever he would fall asleep.   
He suspected the only reason he hadn’t been fired was out of pity. None of his coworkers had any idea as to why they felt sympathy towards the suddenly mentally and physically exhausted army doctor - this just wasn’t the John Watson they knew.

Mycroft had ordered him to not speak a word of what had happened 6 days ago, and so he hadn’t. His lips had become magnetic. Pressed firmly together, keeping the pain in his throat and chest lodged by that hateful magnetic wall. He spoke only at work when he had to, and spoke even less at home. Often, he could feel Mary watching him with timid but caring reflection.   
John Watson had never been one to care for pity, but now he was wallowing in it.

* * *

Squinting, John sat up in the plush armchair in his living room. His back was aching after being contorted and strained in the prison of the armchair’s sleep limitations. Stretching his arms out and glanced quickly at the clock ticking on the wall opposite. Half past five in the morning. Somehow, against everything he had ever expected, he had woken with plenty of time to get to work. 

Strangest of all, was that he had had no nightmare. 

He had fallen asleep in the chair at some point last night, and had woken as rested as he possibly could be, without the gory mental images he had become somewhat accustomed to anticipate. It was jarringly beautiful - the sudden absence of that constant thought. Subconsciously, John thought he must have come to terms with letting his friend go and he was able to bitterly accept it.

It was day seven and a Friday. Sherlock was being let out of solitary confinement around midday, enough time for him to see his parents and prepare for whatever trip he was taking. Tomorrow he and Mary would meet Sherlock at the airport. 

For the last time.

John knew it would in no way be an easy undertaking, not by any means, but he was comforted by the way the dream had dissolved into nonexistence. The dream would have only made tomorrow so much more wretched.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was putting off posting this because im really nervous lol. its definitely angstier that what ive done so far and i really hope i handled the emotions well enough :/ i would hate to crap all over such a sensitive thing ugh. speaking of: potential trigger warning - suicidal thoughts.

Messily white-painted walls of cinder block loomed wearily over the cell. Despite not being as tall as many assumed, Sherlock’s head would touch the ceiling if he were to stand on the pitiful excuse for a bed. The walls, already tight and suffocating, seemed to get smaller with every day that passed. It constricted the air in his lungs and the remaining sanity left in his mind. They pushed closer and closer until his chest and head were fit to burst from the strain of it all.

He hadn’t slept for the first four days, and slept the entirety of the fifth - bodily exhaustion bullying him into dreaming. Not a single of the meals he’d been given had been touched, and the man’s already slender form was beginning to become skeletal. Ribs pushing against skin which hung limp and corpse-like off his bone structure.

  
Moriarty was unfailingly present. The chains he had used to keep them deep, deep down in the pit of his mind palace had rusted and shattered in from isolation, setting the embodiment of Sherlock’s darkest reflection free to consume him. Fingers like squirming maggots, his hands were woven into the grooves of his brain, tightening its grip gradually day by day. A parasite worming its way into Sherlock’s psyche, relentlessly consuming him inch by inch. 

Sherlock’s mind palace only worked with input, some kind of stimulation, and the stark white walls provided nothing but sneering blankness. So Moriarty roamed free.

Moriarty liked to vocalise everything Sherlock had ignored - repressed - his entire life. He seemed to enjoy it. Goading and nudging Sherlock. Insulting and degrading everything he’d done in his life. All of his achievements seemed meaningless in Moriarty’s eyes - _his eyes_.

Of course Sherlock was intelligent enough to know Moriarty was dead. Dead. But that didn’t make him seem any less real.

* * *

  
Forced to surrender to it, lacking the will to fight it, Sherlock allowed Moriarty to talk - to say everything he didn’t allow himself to think. Thoughts he hadn’t thought for the last 5 years. Thoughts that had been extinguished since John.

John.   
With his kind blue eyes and stupid jumpers, John had unwittingly given Sherlock more than he had ever even known existed. Pure and genuine companionship - something Sherlock had never once experienced in his entire life. Radiant and smiling John had extended his hand to Sherlock and had moved not only into Baker Street, but into Sherlock’s affections and heart. 

Everything in Sherlock’s usually acutely sharp mind had blurred. Baker Street had become a muddled and messy haze, he could hardly remember which wall was where anymore.  
Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, Lestrade, Molly, Mary. All their faces were faded outlines - silhouettes. But John, John was there. As corporeal and vivid as he was in person. He could see the way John’s face creased when he laughed, the way his brow furrowed and the way he would slowly type out his blog - _their_ blog.

Tomorrow, he would see John again. He would see him again for the first time in what felt like tortured eons, and then he would board a plane and never return.

Six years ago, Sherlock would’ve shrugged off this mission. He had little reason to fight it; the work was all he had in the end, and to die doing so hardly seemed like such an awful idea. Now, though, Sherlock had something that made him want to stay. Something that made the tendons within what he thought was an emotionless, cardiac organ tighten and threaten to snap at the thought of having to leave him - John. Chordae tendinae - heartstrings - weren’t affected by sentiment and yet Sherlock felt as though they were slowly snapping, rendering his existence to feeble hopelessness.

Sentiment had been something he had sworn against, it only made everything so much more complicated. He had been right, but in some stupidly emotional way, he was glad of having been able to experience it. 

John was so much more than he had ever deserved.

* * *

  
It was at night that it was worst. The blankness of the walls was enough sensory deprivation to have Sherlock tugging at his hair, just to feel _something_. But the blackness of the night was something entirely more sinister. Almost total and complete dark, only the flickering white light at the corner of the cell gave him some twisted feeling of solace. Positioned without allowing enough vision for an inmate to see anything other than the dim light itself, the light source gave just enough light so the wardens could keep tabs on him.   
_As if he was going to try anything, he wasn’t a killer. Not really. Just someone who realised there was only one thing to be done to protect the singular person they care so disgustingly deeply about._

  
It was during the night that Sherlock’s mind was entirely Moriarty’s. They were now part of one beating heart - _I am you_. Melded together in Sherlock’s mind, an insistent hiss of putrid loathing. Sherlock wanted nothing more than to shut his brain down. Fill it with anything but Moriarty. 

_Oh, just kill yourself. It’s a lot less effort._

Droning memories resurfaced, the languid lull of Moriarty’s voice as he toyed with his mind and his thoughts. The truth was Moriarty frightened Sherlock more in death than he had in life.

_Go on, for me._

Moriarty drawled words Sherlock had heard before, but now. Now their meaning was entirely new. Sherlock’s breathing grew more rapid, his hands clutched over his ears fingers entangled in his own matted curls. The same way he had done as a child when the other children had been cruel. He blocked it out. _Don’t listen to him, think of something else. Think of John and Baker Street. The Study in Pink, that was a stupid title, so boring and hardly mentioned the actual crime…_

Neurones in Sherlock's mind were firing like flashes of panicked, bright light. Each bolt of lightning, each frenzied shot of light into the enclosing dark, was soon followed by the cruel, rumbling thunderclouds. Moriarty’s thunderous fog swarmed him after each futile attempt to banish him. Leeched the light from the sky and covered it a swirling tumultuous mist.

_Off you pop._

The words from that rooftop were playing in his mind. Sinister yet somehow beguiling. He hated that he had allowed his thoughts to take the form of a person, a person who was managing to make his words seem tempting - appealing.   
It was only this last night; he only had to get through this one night. He was being released tomorrow and then he could see John again. After that- after that nothing really mattered.

 _Go on. I_ told _you how this ends._

“Fuck off, fuck off, _fuck off_ ”

It was the first thing Sherlock had spoken since he’d come here a little over six days prior. His voice was husky and strained from lack of use, and the words ripped the back of his throat with the pungent stench of age-old breath. 

Moriarty’s voice, without warning, then shifted into the voice of another. His own. It echoed through his head, pounding against the linings of his membrane and rippling murderously through his body.

_Goodbye John._

Soon, Sherlock would be forced into leaving John behind in the only chapter of the detective’s life that had been bright with colour. Everything he had been fighting against in this lonely, dirty week of isolation had elicited to his concession to the voices that lay dormant once John had come into the picture. Without John, the detective’s life would resort back to the faded grey it had been since the day he was born, and he would be alone with only his job and his own thoughts.

As much as he wished it didn’t everything Moriarty whispered to him made Sherlock feel twenty again. He had thought beyond that chapter in his life where everything was tinged with muted, miserable tones. Scared and desperately alone. Before he had found the work, before he had even considered imagining a life beyond twenty-one.   
It was that same feeling; the acceptance that your life was limited and there was nothing you could do about it. Not that he’d ever wanted to prevent that inevitability, he had welcomed it and wanted to meet the cold, sunless friend who had hovered over him since his childhood.

Sherlock had escaped that friend when John had arrived in his life.They had melted into the dark - Sherlock hadn’t needed death to keep him company whilst John was there. John who was such a contrasting force: the bright side of the moon, the first rays of sun after a storm, the burning wick in a darkened room. But Sherlock couldn’t have John anymore and so death’s comforting hand was on Sherlock’s soldier - the touch of an old friend. As if they had never left.  
  
Once again, Sherlock Holmes wanted to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god this was so fucking depressing to write. but highkey, i am obsessed with all that is angsty so in my idiot brain i was kinda enjoying hurting myself oops. anyway :) hopefully i did this emotion some sort of justice. please let me know if it was anyway callous, i was sort of going from some of my own thoughts but like accentuated massively so hopefully it felt genuine idk. i can only imagine how shit it was for sherlock in that weeklong isolation :(


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the penultimate chapter !! wow that's insane lmfao. im only like 4 chapters in on episode one so id better hurry tf up ig. thank you so so much to everyone who has left a kudos or a comment on this, it really makes my day frfr :,) i love hearing from you guys. in comparison to my dumbass you sound like such intellectuals

Mycroft grumbled less than he usually would have done that afternoon at his parents cottage. Then again, this wasn’t the usual. Instead he placidly studied his little brother coiled in the corner of the room, arms tightly wound around his knees. 

The air was thick with unspoken discomfort. His mother, who was often the one to find conversation the easiest and most natural, seemed to have had any words sapped from her tongue. Her bladder, it seemed, was constantly refilling despite the very little she drank. Mycroft spotted the signs when she returned from her countless trips to the bathroom. Reddened eyes and the faltering way she held herself like a startled prey animal recoiling into itself, disparate to the straightness of her posture and bounce to her step that was typical for his mother.  
Sherlock would have noticed it too, he was sure. 

Best not to say anything; the frailty of their nerves could easily be shattered, provoking any of a range of unnecessary human emotion.

  
His father made disjointed conversation to which they would all monosyllabically hum tired responses. The Holmes family, due to the difficult nature of their children, had never been known to spend time with one another in such a manner. They were accustomed to comfortably speaking with practical purpose, and never for such sentimental gatherings such as this. None of them knew what to make of it. Sherlock least of all.

  
Sherlock hadn’t spoken a single word the entire visit; the lack of his goading remarks filled each second with oozing unease. Dancing on paper thin silence, Mycroft took the opportunity to examine his little brother. Under-eyes like charcoal on the haunted pallor of his skin _(little to no sleep)_ and clothes which had fitted him a mere week ago hanging loose off his frame _(little to no food)_.   
If it wasn’t Sherlock, Mycroft may have cruelly pointed out these things - some snide comment about being a poster-boy for a sickly, Victorian child. 

  
Mycroft almost felt guilty for subjecting Sherlock to all of this, but it was the greatest mercy to even allow his brother the trip to Eastern Europe. They had initially wanted to permanently incarcerate him - or worse. 

Magnussen had been right about many things, but his cognizance that Sherlock was his weakness - his pressure point - was something he should have seen to sooner. Such information becoming known would only put Sherlock or even the entire British Nation at risk. Sentiment was among the greatest of human catastrophe.

* * *

  
Hours traipsed wearily through muddy smalltalk and grief-tainted tea. The clock marked each second with a resonant tick, and Sherlock watched the little black second hand move in a ceaseless circle. He hadn’t wanted to be here. Seeing his parents only made him even more aware of the burden he had gracelessly placed on their shoulders. No parent ever wanted to outlive their child, even a child who had been difficult, sullen and temperamental since childhood. He hated doing it to them, hadn’t even considered how this may have affected them as he shot Magnussen only a week prior. 

_Selfish boy_ , Moriarty scolded in mock parental reprimand, _poor mummy and daddy are going to be so upset. How could you break their hearts Sherlock?_  
Sherlock sucked in his teeth and tightened his grip on his shins, concentrated on the ticking of the clock. 

  
Sherlock’s frame of mind hadn’t improved, even after being released from the claustrophobic, mind-numbingly senseless four walls he had been confined to for close to one-hundred-and-seventy hours. If anything Moriarty was stronger now, more tenacious in his resolve to have Sherlock lose.   
Since the beginning, it had been his mission to see Sherlock lose - to fail. It was only from beyond the grave that he seemed able to succeed. Able to penetrate the fabric of Sherlock’s mind, from the inside out.

He wanted Moriarty _out_. Wanted nothing more than to cull his incessant jibes, and he knew of only one way to achieve that. 

* * *

  
“You sure, Shezza? That’s a lot… Besides aren’t you s’posed to be going somewhere in Europe, like, tomorrow?”

Wiggins shifted on his feet, glancing tentatively and nervously at his clasped hand, in which Sherlock had wedged fistfuls of pound notes. He didn’t want to accept the pile wadded snugly into his hand. This was his job and his livelihood, yet somehow something whispered that he press the notes back into the detective’s hand and send him on his way. 

“I’m sure,” Sherlock’s stared him in the eyes, the blue of his eyes pooling and drowning Wiggins. A melancholic plea. Wiggins was sure Sherlock could see his reluctant hesitation. He could see everything. That was his whole thing. Looking at you and being to tell you almost anything about yourself, his eyes boring holes into your very bones; the man himself however was always entirely closed off - there was nothing to be seen in his eyes. 

Until now.

“Please.”

Wiggins didn’t refuse. He desperately needed the money himself, and honestly since when did he ever care that much about those who bought from him? There was no reason that should change for the cadaverous man in the Belstaff, who was more than rich enough to afford it. 

“Alright then. Okay. This is the last time, though okay? You’ve got, like, important shit to do now.”

“Not much use worrying about me coming back.”

Oh. _Oh._  
Everything was immediately obvious. The grimy window he had been trying to peer through had finally been cleaned and Wiggins saw what was really going on here. A suicide mission. Nice. 

He’d always known that brother of his was a tosser. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ending this chapter with a wiggins pov was somehow amusing to me. i guess i just never expected that to happen.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter !!! Woah this has been wild. Hopefully yall will tune into the coming episodes in this 'series'. The first will be entitled The Lying Detective, which will definitely have big similarities with the canon because personally that episode kinda slapped doe.

_To the very best of times, John._

That is what he had come up with - the best he could do. He meant it; he wanted nothing - _nothing_ \- more than for John Watson to be happy. Wherever that happiness came from. Adrenaline or Mary Watson, it didn’t matter as long as John was content and cared for. That, in itself, was the only objective, the reason for his radical behaviour that evening in Appledore. John and John’s happiness was as vital to Sherlock as the oxygen in his lungs, or the blood in his veins.

Moriarty was entirely absent now. He’d taken care of that, and it was wonderfully and blissfully tranquil now without the thick, sticky stream of words choking his mind. For the first time in a week he wasn’t keeping company with the vocalisation of his most intrusive thoughts. He wasn’t keeping company with anything anymore, his mind had both dulled and cleared, providing a weightlessness he had once believed he would’ve never experienced again.

The list in his coat pocket seemed to be made not of paper but of tenebrous lead. Weighing on his conscience as a deafening upheaval of guilt for when he was sure Mycroft would find it. If not today, then sometime in near future. His brother would find a wad of lists, crumpled into the pockets of a Belstaff coat, somewhere in Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus. It seemed unfair for him to leave such tangible evidence at his own gamble with death. 

Sherlock, over the years, had grown to be less affected by everything he forced into his bloodstream, but that hardly made him invincible. It was only a matter of time.

Sherlock’s vision floated on the surface of his phone screen: _A strange meeting_. January 29th 2010. 

Since that day it had always been the two of them. Granted there had been complications but they had always worked as one. _Me and the madman. Me and Sherlock Holmes_. They were two parts of a whole; a churning, well-oiled machine that worked in astounding synchronicity despite the disparity of their souls. Over two full years at each other’s sides but now their seams were being pulled further and further apart as the miserable little plane flew out across an endless blue expanse of cloud painted canvas. It was all coming to an end.

It hadn’t even been five minutes when the dull rumble was heard and he was passed a phone. _It’s your brother_ , they had said. There was no logical reason for Mycroft to be contacting him now - he was hardly one for a sentimental expression of farewell. 

_You’re needed._

He was returning. To London, to Baker Street. To John. As haughty as he had sounded on the phone, Sherlock was masking undiluted elation. Whether that was heightened by everything in his system he didn’t know, but one thing was for sure: Sherlock still had time. Still had something to live for.

As the plane rerouted, a familiar guilty dread settled in the pit of his stomach, mingling uncomfortably with his previous joy. It was the same dread he had felt every time he had deceived his brother, every time he had lied up until Mycroft had discovered him and his list curled companionably on the dusty floor of whatever doss house he was currently inhabiting. The same dread he had had months ago when Mycroft had called members of his “fan club” to search his apartment.   
That time had been worse, even if it was so much milder than what Mycroft was used to, because this time John was part of the equation. John’s disappointment made Sherlock feel nothing short of awful, and the thought of revisiting that feeling in only a few short minutes mad him want to retch - although that may not just have been dread. 

Moriarty had been silent for approximately 5 hours now, but now here he was again. Except this time he wasn’t just in his own mind. The thought of him as a physical entity relaxed Sherlock. He wouldn’t be alone in his struggle to vanquish him, there would be witnesses across the whole nation.

Despite the fear and dread that was as potent as everything he had coerced into his veins, Sherlock wanted to make his mind useful. He figured he may as well distract himself and harness the mental advantages the poisons in his bloodstream were providing him, and try to solve the case. Moriarty’s case. 

How the man could possibly be alive was a mystery; it was entirely irrational. That, however, was exactly how Sherlock liked it. 

* * *

  
John was terrified. The contents of that list was enough to turn his blood glacial. He was a doctor and yet he hadn’t noticed before Sherlock stepped on that plane, and had continued to not notice until he had seen that list for himself. Too stunned to be angry - to be sad - John had only gaped as he read it over and over in his mind. Sherlock could easily be dead and yet he wasn’t. That kind of tolerance frightened him; to have that kind of tolerance equated to such a level of abuse that John’s mind could not physically comprehend.

Sherlock had fallen into a stupor, and when he had finally awakened after far too many minutes of John’s heart beating in a whirlwind of panic, he had seemed fine. He was stroppy as he usually was, had been quick to insult Mycroft and was eager to cryptically announce he had solved whatever was going on with Moriarty. Agitated and bewildered, John could only let Mary drive them both back into the city and let Sherlock out at Baker Street.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay? I mean, you know-”

Sherlock smirked, as if he thought John stupid for even suggesting it. “No, it’s fine. I’ve got to,” he waved a hand vaguely as he opened the door to Baker Street, “Get started on this Moriarty business.”

“I thought you said he was dead?”, Mary chimed from the drivers seat.

“He is. Doesn’t mean the announcement is something not to worry about. Really, Mary, I thought that much was obvious.” 

When Mary and John still didn’t drive off, Sherlock stood awkwardly at the door for a while, not quite sure what to make of their hesitation. 

“Really. I’ll be fine. Now go.” He smiled again, as proof of his statement. For the first time that day, John Watson was convinced. Sherlock really was going to be fine.

* * *

  
John, of course, didn’t see the comedown. The truth of what happened the moment Sherlock reached the apartment they had once shared. He didn’t see when Sherlock had stumbled and collapsed onto his chair, where he was soon drenched in his own sweat, which clung to his body in a shameful mock cocoon. Didn’t see the tremors that followed him, only increasing in severity over the next four days. 

John assumed Sherlock was deeply immersed in the exciting new case - everyone did. He was both restless and exhausted, which for Sherlock seemed hardly irregular so when Mrs Hudson brought him tea and biscuits, she didn’t bat an eye to see him lying motionless one day and practically bouncing frantically off the walls the next.

Only Sherlock knew of the pain in his abdomen and the terrors of the night and the _craving_. The craving that he had to resist entirely alone, because John must not know. Must not worry, because if he did their dynamic would completely change and John would only be wary of Sherlock - wary of the broken man he unknowingly had for a best friend. Sherlock endured the craving because he wanted so desperately to be clean. For John. So that John wouldn’t have to have yet another burden brought upon him by his already complicated problem friend. 

Sherlock sat through the minutes of retching and the helpless trembling - alone. Kept a determined aloofness whenever Mrs Hudson came calling. She didn’t even know about the overdose, so the withdrawal flew entirely under the radar. He waited out the nagging thoughts and the terrorizing return of Moriarty’s taunts because now he had something to concentrate on. The case.

He was strong enough to survive the intensity of the withdrawal for one simple reason.

The game was back on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> may i just add the way i ended this like,,, i can hear the theme tune following it in my head. MY MIND


End file.
